The topic I want to investigate is the difference between music by musicians with perfect pitch (PP) vs relative pitch (RP). In a lot of musical scenes, perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) is adored like it is some kind of godsend. On one hand, perfect pitch only means you can identify pitches quickly, which would not necessarily make you a better musician. On the other hand, using it as a tool to learn music theory faster and easily identifying pitches when playing in some kind of ensemble could really make someone a better (subjectively, of course) musician. Listening to music is not the same as playing music and identifying music is not the same either. It is important to note that I use the word relative pitch here as any non-absolute pitch hearing, since everyone seems to have some kind of natural understanding of relative pitches (even the untrained ear can usually distinguish the octave from the minor second for example). This is not necessarily the general use of the term relative pitch, but it is a way for me not to have to distinguish between all identified types of non-perfect pitch hearing.
It’s not hard to identify that my natural comparison groups consists of artists (PP artists vs RP artists). However, unbiased sampling of these artists is not a simple ordeal. Just choosing some random PP and RP artists would easily fall to biases, so I have put some thought and consideration into how I want to sample the artists. Keeping differences that are due to genre out of the comparison will definitely be one of the biggest challenges for researching this corpus. For this reason, I have decided to compare specific artists with PP to artists with RP who fall into the same genre of music at approximately the same time period and with a similar caliber. This will not be able to provide a thorough conclusion, but it will hopefully provide some information into the differences between muscians with PP and those without.
I will also do some more in-depth analyses of particular songs or pieces. I think the most interesting artist to research in this corpus is Jacob Collier, since he seems to have one of the most brilliant and specific perfect pitches known to humankind, and he has made some astoundingly complex music, in which absolute pitch definitely seems to have had an impact in the way he has challenged conventional music theory rules. The problem with this however, is that his music can be so complex that especially the analyses based on pitch can be so complex that it will be very hard to capture with the algorithms made for western music with twelve tone equal temperament that I will be using.
| Genre | PP artist | RP artist | Number of tracks per playlist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rock | Jimi Hendrix | Cream | 40 |
| Classical | W.A. Mozart | FJ Haydn | 62 |
| Pop | Charlie Puth | Nick Jonas | 45 |
| Jazz | Oscar Peterson | Red Garland | 49 |
n = 196 N = 392
include_url(url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvmALPu5TU&ab_channel=AdamNeely")As you can see in Adam Neely’s video, the key of Hey Joe, by Jimi Hendrix (who has PP and is in the PP playlist), has a key that is somewhat ambiguous. To look at the ambiguity, one can look at a keygram, which shows all keys and can basically show which key is more likely than another key. In the next tab we’ll take a look at what happens.
I have tried to make the tempogram work but so far my laptop has refused to do the amount of work that is necessary for a tempogram, which is why I have settled for a novelty function for now. I haven’t spent much time on anything else, so the portfolio really hasn’t improved very much. I will probably do most of the work on the weekend before the deadline of the portfolio after all of my exams.
I haven’t been able to do much yet, but at least here is a chord-o-gram of a song by Charlie Puth who has PP.
In the pitch graph, you can see very clear boxes, especially around the 200-300 mark. These indicate novelty. The 200-300 mark is the bridge, which is why it is the clearest box (since bridges are, generally, melodically very different from the verse and chorus). You can also see some diagonal lines around the 75-200 mark, which indicate repetition. In the timbre graph however, you do not see these diagonal lines, apart from the one through the middle that indicates that we’re graphing the same song against itself. This means that there seems to be no or very little repetition within timbre. However, since the whole timbre matrix is almost completely blue, this indicates that there is very little timbral change.
A comparison of the playlists “This is Mozart” and “This is Haydn”. Mozart had absolute pitch, while Haydn did not. As you might be able to see, Haydn’s pieces have a wider range of valence for both his minor and major pieces than Mozart, especially in the high valence (positive mood) range. The compositions of both artists have a low level of energy, which is consistent with their style, but interpretations of the pieces by the orchestras performing the pieces could also have an effect. Mozart’s pieces also seem to have a wider distribution of energy in his pieces in major.